Apple has a new patent for 3D gesture control tech

Apple’s patent describes Kinect-style gesture recognition technology that not only recognises gestures, but remembers them as well.

This allows the tech to spot a gesture even when a part of the hand is obscured, leading to greater accuracy, reports Tech Crunch.

Apple acquired PrimeSense (who powered much of the technology that went into Xbox’s original Kinect sensor) back in 2013.

It was speculated then that the acquisition would result in the introduction of gesture control onto Apple TV as well as a number of other possible uses.

PrimeSense’s patents were transferred to Apple last year, and have now been upgraded with the eventual improvements in accuracy and efficacy of gesture recognition.

The new patent for “learning-based estimation of hand and finger pose”, relies on 3D imaging hardware that can create precise depth maps, enabling it to seek out a hand gesture by isolating hand landmarks and reconstructing a digital skeleton.

It then goes further into estimation algorithms, degree of confidence calculations and weighting formulas.